Sprint has banner quarter, still posts net loss

Moments ago, Sprint released its earnings report card for the first quarter of 2011, and things are definitely improving. The company saw its largest increase in wireless customers in the last five years, adding 1.1 million subscribers across all Sprint brands — prepaid net additions totaled 846,000 lines and postpaid adds totaled 310,000 lines. The company also saw a spike in revenue and ARPU. Sprint posted revenues of $8.3 billion, up 3% year-over-year, and ARPU jump $1 year-over-year to $56. The company also noted its postpaid churn rate or 1.81 — down from 2.54 one year ago. The nation’s third largest carrier still posted a $439 million loss — a diluted loss per share of $0.15 — so you can’t really call the quarter a success. “We’ve added two million wireless subscribers over the past two quarters,” said company CEO, Dan Hesse. “In spite of Verizon’s iPhone launch and aggressive competitive responses to it, our simple and unlimited plans, 4G leadership, strong customer service, and successful multi-brand strategy drove solid Sprint performance for the quarter.” The link to Sprint’s full earnings statement is after the break.

Anyway. Keep pushing strong Sprint! Only carrier that has sensible UNLIMITED Plans for a good price that customers care about. Dan Hesse is a genius!

serpentor

I wonder why bandwiith hogs don’t put a strain on Sprint’s network like it does on everyone else. Unless everyone else is lying about it.

Scott

I can honestly say that I’ve seen AT&T network strain first hand. A year ago, I could get 3-4Mbps down and 1.5-2Mbps up. Now, in the same area, I get 1.5-3Mbps down (with 3Mbps usually being really early in the morning) and 700kbps-1.5Mbps up. Yeah, the speeds are still “good”, but they used to be “great”. Oh, and last month, I used 8.5GB of data ;)

Anonymous

Smart comment, thank you for your valuable contribution to the discussion. Now return to getting the shaft from Verizon.

http://twitter.com/n8d n8d

Unless Verizon is paying you advertising money to use their logo as your avatar, you sir, are a jagoff.

CongratsSprint

And by that you mean. Damn! I wish they’d go away. We at Verizon may have to change our strategy of screwing our customers!

CongratsSprint

And by that you mean. Damn! I wish they’d go away. We at Verizon may have to change our strategy of screwing our customers!

CongratsSprint

And by that you mean. Damn! I wish they’d go away. We at Verizon may have to change our strategy of screwing our customers!

TheRequiem

At least I have 4G today…

Anonymous

How bout that LTE outage?

Anonymous

How bout that LTE outage?

Lowell Mcadam

I know who you are Joe. You are one of those schmucks wondering around the verizon store dressed in a shirt tie. Which looks ridiculous on you because it can’t fool the customer in to thinking you’re anything more than a glorified clerk. You’ve been served the corporate kool-aid and now you’re running around waiving your Verizon Wireless flag. That’s what they want Joe, they build up your ego, promote arrogance, dumb you down and make you believe you a prolific piece to the all important puzzle! Right Joe!

Unfortunetely Joe, you should take a look at employee turnover with your heralded employer. Your days are numbered, speaking of numbers, you have a number, it’s what Verizon identifies you as. Bet you want post your employee number Joe!

What they failed to tell you Joe is you have no future there Joe. People like you are bought and sold by the thousands everyday throughout the different regions. Look into it Joe! don’t let those dollar for dollar 401k plans fool you Joe…

So Joe, when you show up for your shift tomorrow, just know that the customer your spewing your verbal corporate arrogant diahrea to is well aware that you are just another punk in a shirt tie with no real qualifcations that would require him to appear professional.

http://emuneee.com Evan

It makes you wonder what Sprint has to do to turn a profit. I don’t remember a time where they were in the black and it cant be sustainable.

ROBBY232

They Neeed to Get rid of iDen (NEXTEL)…..Sprint is posting adds like gangbusters on CDMA….iDen continues to bleed out until there’s nothing left.

BGR Fails to report that little bit of significant info.

serpentor

310k postpaid adds is pretty astonishing seeing that they don’t have iPhone and the Verizon iPhone was released.

Anonymous

When you remove things like iPad and kindle AT&T only added about 400k subs…. That’s with the 50 dollar iPhone. I think sprint did a great job!

ROBBY232

They Neeed to Get rid of iDen (NEXTEL)…..Sprint is posting adds like gangbusters on CDMA….iDen continues to bleed out until there’s nothing left.

BGR Fails to report that little bit of significant info.

Anonymous

Book loses =/= real loses.

In a mark to market world, investments, depreciation, investment (non-liquid) loses all drag down the bottom line while not really affecting the cash flow. In this example, a lower churn and higher adds will grow real assets to overcome the (still imaginary, but accounted for) loses.

http://emuneee.com Evan

Cool, I was reading the actual press release and saw they made a $1.6bn debt payment. So maybe its not all doom and gloom. Im eager to see what there numbers look like in two quarters.

Anonymous

– edit – removed comment due to learning it was incorrect, after having done a bit more digging –

Anonymous

Honestly, Sprint is very good. Four years ago, everything about them sucked and slowly, they have become awesome in price, coverage and customer service. Well done Sprint! You have become the first cell carrier I renewed with in over ten years.

Anonymous

I’ve been with Sprint a decade now – I’m looking forward to switching to Verizon. They force you out of the legacy plans – no point in staying if they don’t give me a discount after a decade over a schmuck walking in off the street. Before some idiot posts – “they”ll lose money on the legacy plan” please provide me proof of how much it costs to have someone on a legacy plan vs. how much they make if I’m on another carrier. FYI if you google it – you’ll find that Sprint estimates that it costs between $200 to $300 in advertising for each new customer. So just trying to get someone to get a new customer Sprint would pay $250 while they have zero incentive for me to stay with them – not bright.

Anonymous

I was upset about being moved off my old Sero plan, but I also had a palm trio on it to start, so I guess I can’t complain about needing a new plan for my Android phone.

With discount stacking I was paying about $12 a month for unlimited everything (except voice 700 minutes…). I am still about $30 a month lower than any other carrier for what I get, so whatever, I get a nice phone, 4G, unlimited cell to cell, google integration, Sprint premier, text included, etc…Even at a higher price than the old plan, it is still a pretty sweet deal.

Anonymous

Since Sprint has only 1 plan that would potentially suit my need for minutes (about 1250-1500 almost all to and from land lines) a month I’d have to go with the $110 simply everything plan – for which sprint won’t give out discounts. I have had a smartphone for about 7 years and I can tether (which I do when I’m stuck at the airport), I have 2 email accounts on push, I have 2 web browsers and I still have NEVER exceeded 25 MB per month. I hate text – probably only use about 20 texts per month between friends and clients.

With Verizon I could go with their 900 minute plan and get 5 unlimited calling numbers – since 5 numbers probably account for about 750 minutes per month, I won’t have to worry about exceeding my minutes any more as my current plan only has 1500 minutes. I can get a 200mb data plan and have plenty of room to spare. I can get about a 20% discount stacked on that plan. I’ll save SERIOUS cash by switching to Verizon as Sprint doesn’t give discounts for clients like me and Sprint doesn’t let you customize plans for your needs.

serpentor

People being on SERO plans could be a reason Sprint is still losing money.

Anonymous

serpentor – feel free to show the cost of keeping a customer on sprint’s network – expenses on the part of Sprint for a line and then we can compare the price that a SERO customer pays per month. I could also suggest that it is incompetent management, expensive company retreats, poor cost management e.g. paying 3 times as much as necessary for rent of corporate offices, litigation expenses for Sprint defaulting on company debt, bad phone selection (other than the precious EVO), poor customer service, bad investments, lack of effort to reduce churn…

I can suggest a slew of things but I’d probably want to have evidence before suggesting that something that could be proven is the source of their continuously losses.

Anonymous

I was upset about being moved off my old Sero plan, but I also had a palm trio on it to start, so I guess I can’t complain about needing a new plan for my Android phone.

With discount stacking I was paying about $12 a month for unlimited everything (except voice 700 minutes…). I am still about $30 a month lower than any other carrier for what I get, so whatever, I get a nice phone, 4G, unlimited cell to cell, google integration, Sprint premier, text included, etc…Even at a higher price than the old plan, it is still a pretty sweet deal.

Anonymous

The everything Plus referral 1000 minute with unlimited data and text is 79.00…did you even ask for this one?

Anonymous

Thanks but no – it wouldn’t be enough minutes.

mattymais

Right now a couple things you can do.. #1 All rebates are instant for current customers also #2 handsdown you will be paying at least $30-$40 more a month to the other big “2”. The Evo is the hotteset selling device in Sprints history “awesome phone”. 3rd before you upgrade call care they will give you a credit per line you upgrade ranging around $50-$75 bucks (NOT FOR NEW CUSTOMERS) Go into a store and see for yourself great phones best plans even if you have a historical plan i only pay a little more and i had my old plan for 7 years!! But now i have everything unlimited. Also tell them where you work you might qualify for a discount. Good Luck

Anonymous

Thanks. But that is ONLY if you need unlimited everything. I only need lots of minutes as I use my phone for work so it is to land lines. I don’t need text and I barely use data – the other carriers let you cater your plan to your needs so I’d save money on other carriers. If I needed unlimited everything and Tmobile had good coverage where I need it, they have unlimited EVERYTHING on smartphones for $60 per month, $80 if you want to buy a subsidized phone from them. So Tmobile would be a way to save money and get unlimited everything and I could even put jailbroken iphone on their network along with a slew of other cutting edge phones such as the GSM version of the EVO 3D or any WP7 phone I want. The problem is I only get good coverage with Verizon and Sprint and I’ll save money by going to Verizon.

http://twitter.com/wcampbell33 William Campbell

If you have been with Sprint that long, take a look at the $79.00 plan mentioned earlier but call the retention/cancellation team and ask them if they will give you the any 5 option. This will allow you to add any 5 numbers to the line that will not use your minutes. I have been with Sprint for 10 years now and have this option on my 3 lines. This will keep you with an inexpensive plan that qualifies for discounts as well as give you the minutes you need

Anonymous

Thanks – that would be worth considering. I appreciate the info – I didn’t realize they still had the any 5 option, for some reason I thought that was now only on legacy plans.

I really want a 4.3″ SLIM WP7 phone like the HD7S but I might be willing to go Android for the EVO 3D if I could get that option you mentioned. The price with Verizon discounts for what I need would be about the same as this plan but I’d get more data – I won’t use it but at least it would be there.

Spanishawa

Att gained like 40,000 postpaid subs and Sprint gained over 300,000… I would say that’s a win.

Here’s the problem, wireless is one if the few industries when you gain a lot of customers your financial performance actually dips due to the high upfront subsidy cost.

Regardless go Sprint. We’re going to need a third carrier in the mix if ATT sucks up T-Mobile or we’re all screwed.

Guest108

Sprint actually lost 114,000 postpaid subs after you factor in the Nextel losses.

Spanishawa

Att gained like 40,000 postpaid subs and Sprint gained over 300,000… I would say that’s a win.

Here’s the problem, wireless is one if the few industries when you gain a lot of customers your financial performance actually dips due to the high upfront subsidy cost.

Regardless go Sprint. We’re going to need a third carrier in the mix if ATT sucks up T-Mobile or we’re all screwed.

Sin City

You could agree with me or not, but do you know how Sprint could finally gain a profit? Sell the iPad and the iPhone, while keep offering their current plans. Watch everything increase from Subscriber Count Per Quarter to Net Gain Growth.

Spanishawa

That would actually kill Sprint in the short run financially with the high subsidy costs. Long run it could help though.

Their problem is their high debt load right now is hampering everything they want to do. But improving churn quarter after quarter will drastically improve the bottom line.

Anonymous

I agree that their phone selection is probably a big part of their problem. I think the iphone would probably help them out a lot IF as you say they offer it on their current plan. I also think they should do their best to retain their customers. Offer a 5% discount every 2 years off your monthly bill (this way when your 2 year contract is up you are less likely to jump ship). Cap out the discount at say 30%. I’m sure they’ll still make a nice profit, they’ll probably rarely ever lose a customer.

Sin City

You could agree with me or not, but do you know how Sprint could finally gain a profit? Sell the iPad and the iPhone, while keep offering their current plans. Watch everything increase from Subscriber Count Per Quarter to Net Gain Growth.

Sin City

You could agree with me or not, but do you know how Sprint could finally gain a profit? Sell the iPad and the iPhone, while keep offering their current plans. Watch everything increase from Subscriber Count Per Quarter to Net Gain Growth.

mattymais

Joe12034 just upset because he pays double @ Verizon for his crappy service. Joe dont worry!!! I am taking the money i save with Sprint and taking your girlfriend out to dinner…

Anonymous

That’s the funniest thing I have ever heard in the comments…

http://twitter.com/Eric6052 Eric Stephenson

I really want Sprint to succeed more now than ever because the industry needs a credible alternative to the coming Verizon/ AT&T duopoly. I’m waiting until my Verizon contract is all the way up with no early upgrade this time. Then my wife and I are going to look at all carriers including prepaid and voting with our wallets.

NotSprint

Let’s not forget the money sprint has to pay clearwire over the next 3 years!!!!
If the AT&T-T-Mobile Merger goes through, which it will Sprint will not be around for much longer!

Joe12304

Hmm sprint loses money, has limited coverage, and is a whopping 10 bucks a month cheaper than Verizon. Must just be jealous you can’t pass our credit check. :)